A Blog Exploring American History and Politics
The Autobiography. By: Thomas Jefferson July 30, 1776 – August 1, 1776 How the colonies would get along with each other was always going to be a monumental challenge. And, when the nation was born, there was tension between delegates and their states in setting up the framework for how the colonies would vote. With […]
MoreThe political theory that emerged from the Revolution and the debates surrounding the Constitution was not “a matter of deliberation as it was a matter of necessity.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 593.
MoreAmericans’ political beliefs were rapidly changing as the American Revolution progressed into the early years of the Republic. In fact, those beliefs were “constantly in flux, continually adapting and adjusting to ever-shifting political and social circumstances.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 438.
MoreAt the birth of the Republic, the contrast with the European monarchies became clear. The ideals of the Republic represented a fundamental shift in the role of government in individuals’ lives.
MoreBenjamin Franklin, one of the most well-known and most revered Founding Fathers, had a more controversial history than most modern Americans realize. In the late 1750s and early 1760s, Franklin was a “complete Anglophile.” Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, 79. He made “disparaging comments about the provinciality and vulgarity of America in […]
MoreGordon Wood began his 2006 book Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by stating that “[n]o other major nation honors its past historical characters, especially characters who existed two centuries ago, in quite the manner we Americans do.” Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, 3. He continued, stating that Americans “want to know […]
MoreAt the beginning of the 1800s, the American economy was becoming an unconventionally successful economy. Domestic commerce was “incalculably more valuable” than foreign commerce and “the home market for productions of the earth and manufactures is of more importance than all foreign ones.” Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty, 707 quoting Nathan Miller, The Enterprise of a Free People: Aspects […]
MoreThe religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers may serve as a surprise to some modern Americans. However, it is important to put into context that the Founding Fathers lived in an era that was not filled with the religious fervor that would become commonplace in the 1800s. See Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty, 576. Thomas Jefferson hated […]
MoreIn the earliest years of the Republic, the Founding Fathers sought to design the symbols and designs that would characterize the United States. One of the most prominent symbols of the early Republic is the Great Seal of the United States. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams all tried to design the Great Seal. […]
MoreArthur Young, an English writer who was supposedly enlightened and known for his writings about agriculture commented that “Everybody but an idiot knows that the lower class must be kept poor or they will never be industrious.” Derek Jarrett, England in the Age of Hogarth, (London, 1974), 79-80. This English belief, that the lower rungs of […]
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